WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

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Re: Link format: to underline or not

for

From: steven
Date: Oct 6, 2010 5:09AM

"What good does it do to say that someone else should fix the problem if
that person persists in not fixing it?"

If we fix the problem on a website by website basis, we're not fixing
'accessibility' at the right level though. There are billions and trillions
of website that would need fixing with that approach (where we currently
are), for them to all be adequately accessible. That isn't economical and it
certainly isn't efficient, hence most websites are not adequately
accessible.

As seems to be agreed, fixing at the browser level is going to make the
impact of making the web adequately accessible, simply on the mathematical
basis that there are few browsers to fix in order to fix a larger number of
websites. So where does this really put us as developers? Should we really
still be adding extra content to html pages to compensate for lack of
browser accessibility features? in the same way we formerly did when we
added transparent gifs, nested tables and popup windows (which have now been
shunned, but only in hindsight - something I think we should fix now,
without needing to wait 10 years again to repeat).

Just think of all that time spent, building the inaccessible internet
monster we have today, that we are now hell bent on slaying. Can we really
not learn from our previous mistake?

Steven